Gains: Bitcoin’s 2024 Triumph. I remember the excitement in the crypto… | by Saad Jameel | The Capital | Jan, 2025
I remember the excitement in the crypto world as 2024 kicked off. My friend Alex had been quietly buying Bitcoin throughout 2023, always telling me, “Just wait and see.” I used to tease them about being overly optimistic, but looking back now, they were onto something.
The numbers by December 2024 were mind-blowing. Everyone who’d bought Bitcoin in the past year was sitting on roughly 40% gains. It wasn’t just paper profits either — the realized price (basically what people actually paid for their Bitcoin) had shot through the roof. Alex couldn’t stop grinning about it.
I met Alex for coffee last week, and they were practically bouncing off the walls. “You know what’s crazy?” they said, stirring their latte. “This isn’t just some random spike. People actually believe in Bitcoin now. They’re holding onto it, using it. It’s different this time.”
Though, not everyone shared Alex’s enthusiasm. I kept seeing these worried posts from market analysts about how the realized price was getting dangerously high compared to the market price. Classic warning sign, they said. But Alex just shrugged it off.
“Been there, done that,” they told me, showing me some charts on their phone. “Sure, Bitcoin’s going to bounce around — it always does. But have you seen how many new people are jumping in? The money flowing into crypto? This…
